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The fight to build the first hospital in Columbia County will continue well into next year and possibly years beyond, despite a state decision to award the license to Georgia Regents Medical Center. University and Doctors hospitals have filed notices to contest the decision.

Both University and Doctors were denied the required certificate of need in a joint decision by the Georgia Department of Community Health.

The more information they get, the more complex Columbia County commissioners said they find the task of picking a partner from among three Augusta hospitals to build a new hospital in the county.

And while two health care professionals at a public hearing Friday endorsed Uni­versity Hospital as their choice, Chairman Ron Cross said he has heard just as many folks argue for the other two bidders, Doc­tors Hospital and Georgia Regents Health System.

The 11-member committee that will evaluate proposals to build a hospital in Columbia County appears to have little experience with the certificate of need process the proposal will have to go through for permission from the state.

That’s a good thing, a Columbia County official said.

The committee members, who include two physicians, are to focus more on who will best meet the needs of the county and not worry about the complicated process of meeting the licensing needs, Columbia County Administrator Scott Johnson said.

Months before it filed a bid to build a hospital in Co­lumbia County, Doctors Hos­pital of Augusta attacked the very loopholes it now wants to exploit to put a facility there.

Doctors, University Hos­pital and Georgia Regents Health System have filed bids in response to Columbia County’s Request for Pro­posals to build at least a 100-bed hospital with a trauma unit in the county, the state’s largest without a hospital.